rising tides

it's no hurricane irene, but we had our own little flash flood today.

an hour later, the street was dry as a bone. even in the 2 minute span of taking these pics, 

you can already see the sidewalk starting to re-emerge out of the water.

sky so big!

clouds marbling big sky, i'm full.


abq has volcanos! very weeny ones, take a look:

we climbed to the top of one, which made me wonder if these are really volcanos after all, cuz there's no fire, not even a burnt hole to suggest there was ever any lava. maybe someone decided to call these volcanos in hopes of attracting visitors. this is what it looks like on top.


volcano or not, it's a great place to feel tall + watch lightning + clouds.

see my bathroom!

can you tell i miss the ocean? you too can pee in the ocean if you come visit.

go topes!

meet orbit.  he's the mascot for the albuquerque isotopes, a AAA minor league team that feeds the dodgers (but we try not to think about that part). the isotopes are more famous for being the springfield baseball team on the simpsons.

last night we watched the isotopes play the round rock express, which is the feeder team for the rangers. sat just beyond first base for $14. back in the bay area, i'd stopped going to baseball games (go A's!) cuz seemed like every time i went i'd be sitting near some ass whose mission in life was to curse out the opposing players. the last time i went to a game, the guy sitting behind me used his smartphone to look up details about each players' history and then proceeded to tailor his screaming accordingly. "Go back to Springfield College, where you made three errors in the 2003 championship series playoffs and majored in history!" very sophisticated heckling, but did little to increase my faith in fellow people.


at isotopes games, the most ppl grumble about is when other fans ignore game etiquette and stand up during a pitch. ppl came with their kids + extended families, so entire rows belonged to one group of ppl. i felt like i was crashing someone's family reunion. kids crawling everywhere. the fans yell, "GO TOPES!", which i find funny cuz "topes" means "speed bump" in spanish, so they're all really yelling "GO SPEED BUMPS!" 

right as rain

mr. basil had a great day today. 


i like living in a place where i feel happy when it rains (as opposed to SF). everything looks so parched around here that it's hard not to celebrate when the skies open up and let loose. it also helps that it doesn't keep drizzling all day. it'll rain its brains out for maybe 40 min., big fat drops that hurtle down like a million beads spilling off a table top. an hour later, all the puddles have evaporated. the smell of a coming storm is so thick, you can practically chew it- an earthy stew that makes you grow a couple of inches right there on the spot. and thunder! lightning! great during the day, but still freaks me out in the black of night when it sounds like it's striking just behind my head on my pillow.

OOJ: tiny feet in big flip flops

today i had my first visitor to my abq home! she is 2 years old, and she came over with her mom, who's a dear friend from high school, and her little brother, who just learned how to sit up. after checking out our place, she started trying on our shoes. 

sandia crest

today we learned how to beat the heat: run for the mountains. it's about an hour drive to the top of sandia crest, but when you get out of the car you remember what cold feels like. felt weird putting on long sleeves again. here's what abq looks like from above:

when i was a kid and i got my first vivitar automatic camera, i remember using up entire rolls of film on clouds because they looked amazing to me and were constantly changing shapes. i soon learned to restrain myself because somehow (after i mailed the film away to be developed for $1.99- remember that?) the resulting photos rarely captured the grand sweeping swirling hugeness of those clouds. now that everything's digital, i can take as many cloud pics as i want, but here i restrain myself and show you just one:

and lastly, here is the amazing hipster t-shirt i found in the gift shop. notice that it glows in the dark. you *need* this.

2501 migrants

www.2501migrants.com

the abq film festival was/is this wkend. yesterday i watched "2501 Migrants", a 54 min. film about a painter named Alejandro Santiago who sculpts a statue for every resident from his hometown, Teococuilco (Oaxaca, Mexico) who has left the town in search of better fortunes elsewhere. besides my fascination with watching the statues get made by local residents who had never considered themselves artists before this experience, my favorite part was when Santiago interviewed a long-time resident, who barked at him: "I resent you calling our town a ghost town! We still live here and we still have strong traditions!" 

seeing all those statues at once also reminded me of the power of visual representations to connect statistics to reality. the media quotes so many numbers at us that we become numb to their significance. yet if there was some way to install a statue for every life lost in iraq and afghanistan (over 6,000, and that's just U.S. casualties) in every front yard and government office in this country, i wonder how long we would stay complacent about our country's continuing involvement overseas. how about a statue for every person who's died attempting to cross the border into the U.S.? i'd put them in front of the Capitol building as a reminder to legislators of the effects of their immigration policies- no judgment, just a crowd of stone faces that grows larger every day.

strike a pose, there's nothing to it

today i had to get my picture taken for my work badge. i was told to look "professional". this is very difficult for me to do.

prowling in my own home

it's past midnight and i can't sleep. after an hour of listening to night noises- a man coughing, two young-sounding women chatting, toilet dripping, a car engine starting, someone's AC humming, a distant bass line throbbing- i get up + make my way down the hallway towards my laptop in the living room. i try to step lightly, but i might as well be stomping, for all the noise it makes. my PR continues to snore.

one of the many things i love about being a grown-up is the ability to get up out of bed at any hour of the night and wander my living space without fear of getting "caught" by my parents. (i haven't lived with my parents for the past 13 years, and yet the memories of their house rules are still embedded in my skin.) in their house, night time was strictly for sleeping. they were in bed by 10:30, so i had to use my best ninja moves after the light went out in their room in order to avoid waking them up. our house was creaky- the floors, walls, + ceilings all sighed so noisily that even if every human in the house was tucked into bed, it still sounded like people were pacing over our heads. (this was a big problem for me + my overactive imagination when i was a kid.) as i got older, i learned how to avoid certain areas of the hallway floor, following an invisible erratic hopscotch path in the carpet that allowed me to move around the house without waking a parent.

my new place in ABQ is creaky too. i've only lived here for a couple of weeks so i'm still trying to figure out the best hopscotch path to take down the hallway. it almost doesn't even matter how much noise i make b/c my PR sleeps like a boulder until daylight enters through the windows. even if he did get up, there'd be no suspicious questioning. (yet i still freeze in my tracks when i hear movement coming from his direction- why is that?) my mom, on the other hand, associates not sleeping at night with mental unease; if i'm not sleeping through the night, something must be bothering me, and she will interrogate me to figure out the source of my sleeplessness. "how are you sleeping?" is one of the standard interview questions in her weekly phone call to me, along with "are you taking enough vitamin C?" and "are you eating fresh fruit?" (my answers are always: "good", "yes", and "yes", regardless of what is actually going on.)


during these sleepless hours of the night, i wonder if i can access regions of my brain that are typically unused during the day. when my brain's fatigued, do the same parts keep churning onwards as long as i'm awake, or does the factory shut down most functions, leaving only a night watchman whose only job is to ensure that everything continues to run- no fancy or complex functions, just the bare minimum? none of the day employees of my brain ever see the night watchman, none of them even give him a second thought as they punch out at sundown and head home with empty lunch pails. but this night watchman, maybe he is a poet, and he uses these night hours to fill page after page in his spiral notebook with brilliant word paintings that no one will ever see. all night long, he reflects on life and people and attempts to translate these musings into verse. and as the first car pulls into the parking lot of my brain at 0630am when my alarm goes off, he flips his notebook closed, tucks it into his back pocket, + heads out the back door.

maria, this is for u + for all my veggie-lovin' friends

amazing how a trip to the farmers market will get me to eat stuff i'd never buy in a store. maybe i'm falling prey to the farm-to-table mystique, but at least i'm eating my veggies. these are beans, people!

the guy at the stand said the purple ones are called snake beans (sounds scary to me, so i just call them purple beans) and the spotted ones are dragon beans, which sounds like something straight out of a fairy tale.

calling optimus prime

a decepticon is burrowing into our garage! (this won't make any sense to you unless you've seen a transformers movie. if you haven't-- don't. you'll just get a headache. though i'm still a big fan of the first animated transformers movie from 1986)

country club living

i know my neighborhood is ritzy because i live a block away from the country club market.

actually, i really like the artwork. painting clean lines on a plaster wall can't be easy.

but feel free to throw forks

i promised my friend grace a funny pic, so here it is, from schlotzky's on central:

a day in the life

one of my fave rituals of moving into a new town is signing up for a library card. i've adopted the South Broadway branch as my library home because it's a beautiful light-filled space with a small atrium for rotating art exhibits. today i wandered the stacks, passing over Idiot's Guide to Designer Dogs and How to Build Your Own Robot. instead, i checked out:
Lanterns: A Memoir of Mentors by Marian Wright Edelman
Beauty and the Soul: The Extraordinary Power of Everyday Beauty to Heal Your Life by Piero Ferrucci
Safekeeping: Some True Stories From a Life by Abigail Thomas
Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart by Alice Walker


i also went grocery shopping. here's what i got for $31.20:
2 bottles Santa Cruz organic lemonade
2 bags kettle chips
2.54 lb peaches
1.98 lb grapes
1 loaf, La Brea whole grain bread
2 lb baby carrots
1 rotisserie chicken (on sale for $3.99!)


i could really get used to the cost of living here.

cake in a can

we discovered Talin World Market, which probably has the largest selection of Asian groceries in abq. here is their soy sauce aisle:

my PR + i immediately stocked up on our staples. here's his loot:

here's mine:

to its credit, Talin also carries specialties from non-Asian countries, such as England. 

in case you can't tell from the photo, the lower right corner says: "Other popular flavors include Strawberry Jam, Treacle, Spotted Dick, and Chocolate." why hasn't this technology revolutionized American baking? i'm curious to try it, but as you can see, they were all sold out.

because when you think of yummy Vietnamese food, you think of... Paul Bunyan!

remember when i described abq as offbeat + quirky? still true.

Demystifying ABQ

a lot of my friends have asked me questions about abq life, such as "does abq have internet?" (the answer is yes. we also have running water, indoor plumbing, and other delightful modern conveniences you probably enjoy in your own home, wherever that may be in the US. to my friends in europe, central asia, etc.- i won't pretend to know what life is like for you guys.) the following is a list of answers to questions that many of you have asked me. 

STUFF ABQ HAS:

• US Postal Service (i'm not kidding, someone really asked me this)- our friendly mailman (whose family lives in Bakersfield, CA) delivers mail to our doorstep 6 days a week, which is more service than what we were getting in San Francisco.
• internet- i don't understand why, but i can find wi-fi in more places here than i ever could in the Bay Area. so far my fave wi-fi place is a Vietnamese restaurant on central + louisiana, which brings me to my next item...
• decent asian food- so far we've found ok Indian + Vietnamese food, though nothing on the level of what you can find in Sunnyvale, CA.
• green chile everything! green chile is a big deal here + you'll find it flavoring everything from sauces to honey to beer (it's not bad).
• frito pie- another southwestern specialty, you can find frito pies on menus everywhere here. as far as i can tell, it's a casserole of corn chips, cheese, + cheese w/additional toppings of beans, rice, peppers, etc. i haven't tried one yet b/c i'm afraid it'll taste so good i'll never want to eat anything else ever again.
• a zoo that's half a mile from our place. we can hear the seals barking.
• Costco + other big box stores (Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Target, Guitar Center, Staples, Home Depot, etc.)
• lots of CA transplants- the woman across the street grew up in San Jose. our next door neighbor is from Oakland. our property manager used to live in San Diego. my Bed Bath + Beyond cashier was from Santa Ana. i suspect i'm meeting so many transplants because ppl from out of state are the only ones willing to live in ABQ itself, while ppl who've grown up here move to the suburbs as soon as they can. Rio Rancho, a fast-growing northwest suburb of ABQ, was the most consistently suggested location for us to move to when we were polling ABQ natives on where we should look for housing. they thought we were crazy for wanting to live in the city.
• swamp coolers- when i first got here, i kept seeing hand-lettered cardboard signs posted on signs around town advertising for "SWAMP COOLER KING", followed by a phone #. i couldn't tell if it was an indie punk band or a boastful sewer monster laying claim to the monarchy. turns out it's neither: a swamp cooler (we have one at our place) is a cheaper + eco-friendly (less energy, no CFCs) alternative to air conditioning. it's a form of evaporative cooling that pulls water from the air, turns it into vapor, then blows it back into our home, which brings down the temperature maybe 10 degrees or so. in other words, it's better than nothing, but you still can't beat sitting inside a refrigerator when it's 98 degrees outside.
• a great Saturday farmers market in a tree-shaded park within walking distance that has so many ppl pushing strollers + wearing baby carriers that for a split second we wondered if we were back in Noe Valley (a SF neighborhood nicknamed 'Stroller Valley')
• sun + heat (the two don't always go together- see San Fran)- yes, it's hot. my PR's laptop keeps overheating, so he keeps it sitting on a pack of frozen peas, like an injured athlete.
• altitude- 5000 ft above sea level
• non-white ppl- some ppl (who'd never been to ABQ in their lives) warned me that i'd be surrounded by white ppl all the time. there are definitely fewer asians around, but plenty of latino + native american ppl to make up for it. as long as no one asks me, "no, i mean where are you *really* from?", i think i'll be ok.

STUFF ABQ DOES NOT HAVE:

• good Taiwanese/Chinese food- we've been too scared to actually try any of the Chinese restaurants, but the signs outside of them advertise "Chinese + American food", which to me is a bad omen, though maybe i need to be more open-minded.
• beaches- there is a man-made lake/reservoir with a thin strip of sand that is called "The Beach", but, at the risk of sounding like a beach snob- well, it just doesn't have waves.
• recycling/compost everywhere- we get plastic/paper/tin recycling pick-up at our complex thru special arrangement, but i have to take our glass to the farmers market, where they set up special recycling stations.
• bumper-to-bumper traffic
• hordes of AWWGs (Asian Women-White Guy couples)- for this i am grateful. someday i will write a post on why i loathe living in an area where i see AWWGs everywhere i turn.

OOJ: owl cafe

one appealing aspect of abq is its population of offbeat structures. i already posted some of the metal sculptures in a previous OOJ; now i introduce to you the OWL CAFE:

this one was another drive-by shot, so it's blurry, but i want you to be able to see the SCOPE of the Owl Cafe:

home sweet home

when we first got here, we were squatters:

and then our stuff came:

so now it's just a matter of sorting stuff out. i like unpacking cuz it feels like lots of very practical birthday presents: oh look, soap! and here are some hangers! i have over 60 hangers, the discovery of which shocked me at first, but then i decided it's because i don't have drawers so i hang lots of stuff. all of my blankets, scarves, + hats seem obscene in this heat; i can actually pack away the cold weather stuff! what a concept. 


it's ruggedly beautiful here. i'd need a wide-angle lens on my camera to capture just how big the sky feels, but here are a couple shots from my car. i'm getting better at taking pics while driving; it's confusing for my brain to take in info from both a viewfinder + my eyes. the first pic faces west, bottom one faces east:

Martians Welcome

not so many pics for day two of our road trip b/c there was less variation in the scenery. after we left needles, it looked like this for about an hour:

but then the landscape started to look like something a kid would draw, just a straight horizontal line across the page separating earth from sky. this could be yours for just $795 an acre.

in flagstaff, AZ (308 miles to go), i found signs that amused me. this one below is for a burger place, i swear:

and then this sign, which my PR misread as "Asians Welcome." freudian slip, anyone? i do admit i often feel like an alien.

we rolled into ABQ around 7:30. so weird to have arrived + to not have to go go go anywhere anymore. kind of disappointing, actually- now that i'm actually here, what do i do now?